I have returned to the mainland! Yes, it has already been three months since I left... time flies when you're having fun! To finish my mini-summaries that I've been doing at the top of my archived posts, from Queenstown, Juli and I headed out to one of my other favourite places in New Zealand, Aoraki (Mount Cook). After doing a couple hikes, we ( Read more... )

Murchison to Abel Tasman to Picton to Paraparaumu (phew ( Read more... )

I published my last post in a hurry, so I forgot to mention that that night (March 4th), I ended up sleeping down in the parking lot where I saw the possum, because it would have been dangerous to navigate back up that road in the dark! Besides, I wanted to do the walk to the other arch and see the caves in the area, and I was not keen on driving ( Read more... )

I'm in Whakatane right now, friends. "Wh" is pronounced "F" in New Zealand, so tourists are typically quite amused with the opportunity to say the name for obvious reasons. :p ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

On February 23rd, I drove the remainder of the distance to Milford Sound. The drive itself was captivating, tracing a river much of the way and the winding road confined by the steep mountain faces. The area receives a lot of rainfall and so was incredibly lush, with vegetation framing the turquoise-blue pools awaiting the flow from waterfalls ( Read more... )

Juanita has said she'll share some of the pics she took on our trip down south, and I just realized that I already stole some off of her before I left. So, here's one picture of me taking a picture at the surfing beach, and then some ones of caving.

See, I wasn't kidding about the big waves!

( Read more... )

I hear a few of you are wondering where the heck I am other than just "New Zealand", so in a few sentences... I am on an 11 acre horse property northwest of Christchurch, on the South Island (it's near Rangiora if you want to look on a map). I am staying with a couple and until this morning, there was a German girl here as well (Kat). She has ( Read more... )

New Years resolution #1: Catch up on the blog! At least this is the last post about Cairns... this one is lots of text and only a few photos, for a change ( Read more... )

On December 12th, Veronica, Greg, Lily and I drove to Townsville for them to help Veronica's mum pack to move (to Cairns) and for me to go on the only beach-canter-and-ocean-swim horseback ride I could find on the east coast. My mum later told me that she thought three hours was a long way to drive for that (even though she understands my love of ( Read more... )